


The Shape of Things We Know

by AnnabelleVeal



Category: Everything I Never Told You - Celeste Ng
Genre: 1980s, 1990s, Beach Holidays, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Post-Canon, Space Flight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:34:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27986256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnabelleVeal/pseuds/AnnabelleVeal
Summary: Nath and Jack and two trips to Florida, fifteen years apart.
Relationships: Nath Lee/Jack Wolff
Comments: 12
Kudos: 23
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	The Shape of Things We Know

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spellingmynamewrong](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spellingmynamewrong/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide!

Jack drives Nath to the airport. When he pulls up to the curb, he puts the car in park and kills the engine but doesn’t make any moves to get out. Nath, who has been jittery the whole ride, either from nerves or excitement Jack can’t tell—probably both—looks over at him. Jack knows that he can see the worry etched in his expression. He's never been good at hiding his concern, but he's trying, for Nath's sake. Nath reaches out like he's going to try to smooth away Jack's frown, but Jack catches his hand and presses a kiss to his palm.

“You’ll call me when you get there?”

“Of course,” Nath says.

Jack nods, squeezing Nath’s hand before letting it drop between them. 

Standing on the sidewalk, Nath’s duffel bag at their feet, they hold each other for a long moment. When he pulls back, Jack can feel the prickle of tears forming at the corners of his eyes, but he blinks them away. “Everything’s going to go great,” he says, not knowing who he's trying to reassure.

“I’ll see you next week,” Nath says, a promise, as he shoulders his bag and turns to walk into the terminal. Jack watches until he disappears inside, then gets into the car and drives back to an empty house.

Jack spends the rest of the week going through the motions at work and trying to distract himself at home. He scrubs the bathroom floors, takes the dog for long walks around the neighborhood, and catches up on some taped episodes of _NewsRadio_. At night he lies awake in a bed that feels too big and tries to sleep. The curtains are open, and when Jack gets up to close them, he sees that Nath left one of his telescopes set up on the balcony.

The telescope doesn't seem to be trained on anything in particular, or whatever Nath had been viewing has long since moved on, and now all that's left is empty black. Jack knows better than to fiddle with the knobs, so instead he sits down beside it with his back against the railing and looks up at the clear night sky. 

Jack has spent most of his adult life following Nath: first to Boston, then to Pasadena and Houston, and now in a few days to Florida, where for the first time he won’t be able to follow any further. Instead, he will stay behind and watch Nath hurtle away at almost twenty thousand miles per hour and have to just trust that he'll come back. He has always known that loving Nath means accepting the possibility that he won’t.

Nath had been in his last year of graduate school when the Challenger disaster happened. That night, when they finally shut off the news and made their way to bed, after the initial shock and grief, what was left was Nath whispering into the dark, "What if this is the end of it all? What if they never send anyone up again?" 

In the moonlight he had looked monochrome, like the black and white pictures of the early astronauts that he spent his childhood pouring over. Jack didn't have any answers, so he just held Nath close and ran his fingers through his hair, all the while thinking, _P_ _lease don’t make me lose you like that_. All the while knowing, _I could never stop you._

* * *

In late spring of 1981, between the end of final exams and graduation, Jack and Nath spent five days in Miami Beach. Neither of them had ever been on a real vacation before, so they scraped together some money and Jack's travel agent cousin got them a good deal on airline tickets and a hotel only a block away from the beach. Boarding a plane together to go somewhere other than home to Middlewood felt strangely grown-up, as if looking back this trip would stand out as the pivotal moment marking the beginning of true adulthood. 

When they stepped outside of the climate-controlled airport, a wall of hot, wet air hit them in the face. It must have been close to ninety degrees, with humidity to match. “I think I understand now why these tickets were so cheap,” Nath said. His t-shirt was already starting to stick to him with sweat, and the way the fabric clung to his chest made Jack eager to see him out of it. 

“Let’s find a cab,” he said, ghosting a hand across Nath's back and steering them towards the taxi stand.

The hotel was rundown and the neighborhood seedy, but the ocean was a stunning shade of turquoise and Nath and Jack were determined to enjoy themselves. Each morning they walked down to the little cafe on the corner and got Cuban toast and coffee, and then they went to the beach. Sometimes they would splash around near the shore or race out to the sandbar. Other times Nath swam laps while Jack lounged in the sun and watched him. 

Jack had loved Nath from afar for so long that he had become accustomed to it as a state of being, just another inextricable part of himself, like having blue eyes or being left-handed. It had still been new enough then—Nath loving him back—that sometimes it overwhelmed him, took his breath away, remembering that now he could look and touch and _have_. The realization startled him each time, like grabbing a live wire. On that final morning of their trip, it propelled him from his seat in the sand and out into the bathwater-warm shallows, suddenly desperate for Nath's attention to be turned towards him, for confirmation that he was no longer alone in this.

As he started his next lap, Nath spotted Jack standing waist-deep in the water and swam towards him, submerging as he got close. He grabbed Jack around the legs, mostly as a pretext to touch him, and tackled him into the sand. When they resurfaced, Jack laughed and shook the water from his hair, showering Nath in droplets.

They spread out their towels on the beach and lay in the sun to get dry. Jack flipped through a beat-up paperback for a while before setting it aside and closing his eyes, and Nath's thoughts drifted to the next weekend, when his parents and Hannah would arrive to watch him graduate. 

In March, his father had called to say that he was going to be in Rhode Island for a conference and would be flying out of Boston. "I could stay an extra day and come see you," he said. 

Nath had agreed, so taken aback at the prospect of his father wanting to spend time with him that he didn't stop to consider the logistics. The next day after class, he and Jack went to the Salvation Army and got a cheap mattress and box spring for the spare bedroom, which up until then had sat unused. Nath stood in the doorway taking in the bare walls, the empty closet, the thin layer of dust coating the top of the nightstand, and he knew that the illusion was flimsy at best. 

Jack appeared at his shoulder. “I can stay somewhere else while he’s here.”

Nath shook his head. “No, let him think whatever he wants. I don’t care anyway.” Jack just squeezed his arm and didn’t say anything about the obvious lie, and Nath loved him all the more for it.

James arrived late on a Saturday afternoon, and that evening he and Nath went to dinner at a little Italian place in Somerville. 

"Bring me back some garlic bread," Jack had said, kissing Nath sweetly during a stolen moment alone in their bedroom. 

At the restaurant, Nath and his father made stilted conversation, running through their list of safe topics (classes at Middlewood, the new construction going up around town, Hannah starting clarinet lessons) before their food even arrived. Nath waited until after the plates had been cleared away and the check paid to mention his acceptance into the Astronomy PhD program at Caltech. He had braced himself for some sort of needling remark about how one Harvard degree might be good but two would be better, and he was surprised when the comments never came. Instead, his father just said that it would be nice to come visit California when the Midwest winters got to be too much. 

Later, when Nath was making up the sofa where he was going to spend the night, James had emerged from the newly-minted guest bedroom and watched him.

“You know,” he said, “when you were younger, I hoped that you and Jack might become friends.” 

His expression was inscrutable, and Nath froze, waiting for what came next, for his mouth to curl in disgust, for him to say something like, _Is that why you could never get a date?_ or _Weren't you different enough already, did you really need this, too?_ Nath had imagined this moment countless times, turned it over and over again in his mind, rehearsing all the possible permutations of his father's disappointment.

“Are you happy?” 

Nath blinked, perplexed, the question so far from anything he had ever predicted. He felt his cheeks heat as his father’s eyes flicked towards the kitchen where Jack was washing dishes, but he willed himself to not look away. "Yeah, Dad," he said, and his father's face did something complicated, some delicate dance of relief and regret. "I'm happy."

"Good," James said, and then, "That's important." He said it like he was just realizing for the first time that it was true. Maybe he was, Nath had thought.

Nath hadn't talked to his father since that trip, and he wasn't sure what to expect when he saw him next week. UMass graduation was the same weekend as Harvard's, meaning Jack would be occupied with his mom and grandmother coming to town, and Nath felt guilty for being grateful for that fact. Jack was sympathetic, the way he was with everything involving Nath's family, but he couldn't fully understand. Jack's mother had always known about them; she and Jack talked almost every other week, and she ended each call with _Gi_ _ve Nath my love_. No, he reasoned, it was better that he wouldn't see much of the Wolffs, because watching that kind of ready affection in contrast to whatever was coming from his own parents would be too much to bear.

Nath had been mindlessly dragging his fingers through the sand, and he was pulled out of his thoughts by Jack's light touch on the back of his knuckles.

"You okay?" 

Nath turned to look at him and could read the worry in Jack's face, even with his eyes hidden behind sunglasses. He interlaced their fingers. "Let's go get pie.”

They sat inside a tiny bakery, knees nearly bumping beneath the table, a lethargic ceiling fan struggling above them to cut through the thick, muggy air. Nath took a bite of his Key lime pie and let it melt in his mouth, the sharp citrus tang hitting him in the soft palate. Jack had chosen banana cream. He closed his eyes for a moment as he savored it, and Nath watched him, following the bob of his throat when he swallowed. Jack opened his eyes and caught him staring. He grinned and held Nath's gaze as his tongue flicked out to lick the last bit of whipped cream from his lips, and Nath could feel a flush creeping up his neck that had nothing to do with the temperature.

They waited out the worst of the midday heat in the hotel, lying on the tile floor beneath the rattling air conditioner that looked like it was older than they were.

"I can't believe in a month we'll be in California," Jack said. 

He sounded happy, excited even, but Nath's stomach tightened into a knot at his words. This would be the second time in as many years that Jack uprooted his life for Nath.

Ever since that awful summer when he was seven, Nath had tried to reconstruct what had gone wrong: his mother's disappearance and her sudden return, how everything seemed to change after she came back. He had never made sense of it all, and he knew he probably never would, but he thought he finally understood that his mother hadn't aspired to the sort of life she led. That somehow loving his father had meant losing a part of herself. 

He didn’t want that kind of love from Jack, did not want him to subsume himself in Nath, to lose sight of what else might bring him joy or meaning. Because Nath knew himself well enough to know that even if he didn’t want it, he would accept it. He would suck every last drop of it from Jack like marrow from a bone until there was nothing left, because all his life he had hungered for that kind of single-minded focus to be turned for once on him. 

He didn't know how to explain it, though he tried then in halting sentences, not sure where to begin. Jack laughed, not unkindly, just sort of... mystified. "Nath, moving around doesn't bother me. I _want_ to be wherever you are."

He seemed to sense that Nath was not mollified by this. He nudged Nath's ankle with his foot, urging Nath to turn and look at him, before saying in a soft voice, "We are not our parents."

Jack had told Nath once about what he remembered of his father. How Jack would lie awake in bed pretending not to hear the shouted arguments about dishes in the sink or laundry left unfolded after his mother got home from twelve-hour shifts at the hospital. What it had been like watching him leave for good, laying all the blame at the feet of her ambition. Nath was reminded again that in many ways his and Jack's childhoods had been negative images of each other, the same basic shapes in inverse colors. They had both been molded by their own histories of loss, and Jack knew just as well as Nath what it meant to stay.

That evening after dinner, they walked along Ocean Drive, taking in the faded pink and teal buildings bathed in the candy-colored sheen of neon lights. As they wound their way back towards the hotel, they passed a club across the street, music and heavy bass spilling out from the open doors. Nath gave it little notice, but Jack stopped and stared, a hunger in his expression that made Nath pause to look. Then he saw what had caught Jack’s attention—all the people entering the club were men. He turned to Jack and asked, “Can I take you dancing?”

Once inside, it was Jack who led them onto the dancefloor, where Nath reveled in the sensation of anonymity. Here, he was unremarkable and unremarked upon, just another body in the crush. It was thrilling not having to find excuses to touch each other, being able to wind his arms around Jack’s neck and press together as they danced, Nath laughing dizzily, head thrown back, while Jack placed reverent kisses along his collarbone. 

It was late when they left the club, both sticky with sweat and spilled drinks, tired and a little giddy. They walked along the beach, shoes dangling from fingertips and their bare feet slipping in the cool sand with each step. Out above the invisible horizon, the moon sat huge and low in the sky. Staring at the water, Nath’s thoughts, as they still so often did, turned to Lydia.

When Jack had explained what happened the last time he saw her—whispered it into Nath's chest, their bodies nudging up against each other in the narrow confines of Jack's twin bed when Nath was home for winter break his freshman year—his initial response was a tiny flicker of satisfaction that Jack wanted _him_ and not Lydia. Nath had never been anyone’s first choice before.

Now, he found he was grateful for the time she’d spent with Jack. It was a solace to know she hadn’t been as alone those last few months as he’d once feared, but more than that, he was thankful for this point of connection between them, this one final thing he shared with his sister.

"I'm glad she had you," Nath said, trusting Jack to understand what he meant.

Jack glanced over at him, his expression wide-eyed and earnest. “She loved you so much.”

Nath wondered then, not for the first time, what would have happened if Lydia had lived. Would they have ever been close again, or would Nath’s leaving have broken them for good? Would he and Jack still have somehow found their way towards each other? He could never know for certain; there were too many possibilities, too many _what ifs._ All he could do was keep moving forward through this life that had been irrevocably changed by the both of them, neatly bisected into epochs: before and after Jack, with and without Lydia.

* * *

Four days before the launch, Jack arrives in Orlando. He makes his way through the airport, dodging around the families of tourists and impossibly young-looking college kids on spring break, before picking up a rental car and driving out to his hotel near the coast. It's late by the time he gets checked in, and on an impulse he calls his mother, hoping she's home from work.

Jack is surprised at the relief he feels when she answers. He hadn't realized how lonely this past week had been. “How are you doing?” she asks, and a lump forms in his throat.

“I’m trying not to think about it. When I do it's a mix of terror and excitement. Mostly terror.”

“These people are all experts at what they do,” she says gently, and it’s the same reminder he has been giving himself. Every part of this process is checked and triple-checked, and he knows that, statistically, he's more likely to lose Nath to a car crash or a house fire or heart disease. Somehow that thought doesn’t bring him much comfort.

Early on during Nath’s first year as an astronaut candidate, he had slipped getting out of a training module and broke one of the bones in his wrist. It was a simple fracture, easily set when a doctor finally saw him after what felt like an eternity waiting in the ER. By the time he was released, he was more embarrassed by all the fuss than he was hurt. 

Jack hadn't known any of that, though. He had come home from work to an unexpectedly empty apartment, and as he watched the hours tick by with still no sign of Nath, his mind cycled through countless possibilities, each one worse than the last. He paced around the living room, every few minutes picking up the phone only to listen numbly to the dial tone before hanging up again, because who could he call? How would he explain who he was and why he was asking about Nath?

When Nath finally walked in almost three hours late, he was bemused by Jack’s frantic state. He was apologetic, explaining what had happened and insisting he was fine, and Jack relaxed a fraction. As the night wore on, though, he found himself still anxious and unable to settle. He washed and put away the dishes in silence while Nath ate his reheated dinner. After, Nath went to the living room and turned on the evening news. Jack tried to sit and watch with him, but he quickly grew too antsy and retreated to the bedroom. He couldn’t stop reliving the worry from earlier and the sick, heavy fear that had settled in the pit of his stomach.

He was brushing his teeth after taking a shower when he heard a rustling noise behind him and looked up at the mirror to see Nath, struggling to wrap a sheet of cellophane around his cast. He caught Jack’s eye in the reflection and grimaced. “I’m not supposed to get it wet.”

He waited a beat, then added, “I can tell you’re pissed at me, you know. Care to let me in on why?”

Jack spat his toothpaste into the sink and rinsed his mouth. He turned to face Nath and leaned back against the counter. “I’m not pissed.”

“Well, what are you then?” Nath asked, continuing to wrestle with the plastic. Jack sighed and crossed over to him. He batted Nath’s hand away, smoothing the wrap down around his cast and securing it with the rubber band Nath had been holding.

“It’s not—I’m not _mad_ at you. I just—” He trailed off and looked down. He was still cradling Nath's arm. "You got hurt today.” 

“ _Jack_ ,” Nath said, starting to interrupt, but Jack held up a hand to stop him. 

“—You got hurt today and nobody told me.”

He saw in Nath’s face the moment he got it. How many times this past year alone had they watched the worst-case scenario play out with friends in hospital waiting rooms and funeral parlor lobbies? Partners shut out and turned away, families refusing to yield. They may have escaped that particular tragedy, but Nath's career came with inherent risks. If something were to happen to him, it would be his parents’ house in Ohio that got the call. Jack would be an afterthought—if he was thought of at all.

Two weeks later they sat down in the office of a lawyer in Montrose who specialized in estate planning and who had a little rainbow flag displayed on the bookshelf behind him, and they signed a stack of papers—wills and health care directives and powers of attorney—the wet ink of their signatures side by side on the pages daring anyone to deny what they meant to each other.

When they finished, the lawyer handed them a folder with everything in triplicate and said, "Congratulations, that makes you as close to married as the state of Texas allows," and Nath, feeling bold, had leaned over to Jack and sealed it with a kiss.

In the present, Jack is grateful for that piecemeal legal status, one less thing to worry about should anything go wrong. 

“I'm sorry I can't be there with you," his mother says down the phone. She pauses for a moment, then, "James and Marilyn invited me over to watch the launch on TV with them.”

Hannah and her husband will be flying out to join Jack in a few days, but Nath's parents decided not to attend in person. James had suffered a mild stroke a few years back, and traveling was more difficult for them now. That was the reason they had given Nath, anyway. Secretly, Jack wonders if there's more to it than that, if maybe it is simply too hard to face the possibility of losing another child. 

The next day, Jack follows the chicken scratch map Nath had jotted down for him before he left and pulls up to an unassuming beach house on an isolated span of the cape. Nath is standing outside, and he smiles brightly as he comes around to the side of the car and waits for Jack to climb out. 

“Am I allowed to kiss you, or is that breaking quarantine?” Jack asks.

“The flight surgeon said it's okay as long as there's no tongue," Nath says, only half joking, as he pulls Jack towards him. The moment is interrupted by the sound of another car coming up the sandy driveway, and Nath reluctantly moves away.

“Let me show you around.”

As is tradition, the beach house soon fills up with the rest of the crew and their families. It is the last chance any of them will have to spend time together before the launch, and everyone is chatting happily over heaping plates of barbecue. Jack knows that he and Nath are more or less an open secret by now, but he still feels a little hesitant around Nath's colleagues, always careful to maintain a veneer of plausible deniability.

He's studying a display cabinet full of the signed wine bottles left behind by previous crews, when a woman comes to stand beside him. She looks familiar, and Jack thinks he's seen her before at holiday parties and retirement dinners.

"There's so much history here. Strange to think of yourself as a part of it, isn't it?" She peers into the cabinet searching for something, bending over to get a closer look and then tapping one perfectly-manicured nail on the glass when she finds it. "That's the bottle from Hank's first mission."

Hank Abbott—the shuttle commander. And then he can place her. Sherri, he thinks, or Shannon maybe, something like that. He shifts the plate of food he's holding and offers a handshake. "Jack Wolff."

She takes his hand and her grip is surprisingly firm. "I know," she says kindly. "Sharon Abbott." 

They turn back towards the cabinet. "This will be Hank's third shuttle mission. I'd tell you it gets easier, but it doesn't. Although somehow the first time is still the hardest. One of many paradoxes in this life."

Jack understands, he thinks. "Like how this is their greatest dream and our worst fear, and we have to just live with the contradiction."

"Yes," Sharon says, nodding. "Yes, exactly." She gives him a sidelong glance. "Where are you watching the launch from?"

"The cheap seats," Jack says with a wry smile. "I'll be down in the bleachers in the ‘extended family' area."

Sharon huffs, and in the reflection in the glass he thinks he sees her roll her eyes. Voice conspiratorial and low she says, "Maybe by his next trip NASA will get their heads out of their asses and they’ll let you watch with the other spouses from the roof. It really is something to see."

"I’d like that,” he says, feeling a flood of warmth at her easy acceptance.

Somewhere behind them there is a crash, followed by a child's high wailing cry. "Excuse me," she says. "That sounds like one of mine.” With a smile and a quick pat on his arm, she disappears down the hallway.

Nath finds him a moment later. "I wasn't sure where you'd gone," he says. He is balancing two thick pieces of cornbread on a napkin and he slides one onto Jack's plate, a small furrow of concentration forming between his eyebrows. Somehow, it is this simple act that shakes Jack to his core. For a moment, he is overcome by a sense of profound gratitude for the way his life has unfolded, a trajectory that seems at once both unlikely and inevitable. 

" _Thank you_ ," he says, his voice thick with emotion. Nath gives him a soft, curious look, but Jack just brushes his lips feather-light against the corner of Nath's mouth before saying, “Come on, we should get back to the party.”

There is a shift in the mood as evening approaches. People break off into smaller groups, and the conversations become softer, more intimate. Nath slips out of the kitchen and onto the back porch. Jack is leaning against the railing, looking out at the ocean and watching the streaky clouds change from orange to pink to purple. He startles at the touch of Nath's hand between his shoulder blades, but relaxes when he turns and sees him.

“Take a walk with me?” Nath asks.

They wander down the beach, away from the lights of the house, walking close to the water line where the sand is packed down hard and damp. It’s chilly now that the sun has set, and Nath zips up his jacket and stuffs his hand into the pockets. Jack has always run hot, seemingly impervious to the elements, and he looks unbothered as his flannel overshirt flaps behind him in the wind.

On an isolated stretch of beach, they stop and stand side by side, Nath looking at the sky and Jack looking at Nath. 

"When we were growing up, I used to picture space as a way to get away from everything with my parents and Lydia,” Nath says, the crash of the waves nearly drowning him out. “Now I just wish she could be here for this." 

Nath doesn't believe in heaven, not really. He doesn't think Lydia is out there—up there—somewhere, but he still wonders if this will bring him closer to her. If somehow the distance between this world and the next will thin with the atmosphere as he barrels into orbit. In these days leading up to the launch, as he stands on the edge of the precipice, he has felt it again: the taut, heavy pull of connection, like the tie that bound him to Lydia throughout their youth. Except now it doesn't feel so constricting, more grounding maybe, like a thread running from his heart to everyone he loves—Jack and Hannah, his parents, the world itself—marking the way back home. 

The feeling is too great, too expansive to put into words. He reaches for Jack, wraps his arms around him and presses his face into the crook of his neck. He breathes him in, the scent of his aftershave mixing with the salt in the air. Jack holds onto him just as tight, his hands trembling as he clutches at Nath's waist. 

“I am so incredibly proud of you,” Jack says. “Every day you amaze me, Nath. And if this is it, if this is all we get”—he lets out a ragged, shaky breath—“it has been so much more than I could have ever imagined.” He pulls back to look at Nath, eyes glistening. “But this better not be all we get, okay?”

It strikes Nath then, this thing that he loves so much about Jack, that in all their time together he has never said, _D_ _on't leave,_ only ever, _Plea_ _se come back_. 

Years ago on a different beach on this same ocean, Nath took Jack's hand, reminded of that day on the dock when Jack had reached out and pulled him from the lake. He thought of those first tenuous measures of truce that led them to this moment. How improbable it was that they should be there now, and how absolutely sure he was that there was nowhere else he'd want to be. They stripped down to their underwear and ran into the water, Nath leading the way and Jack following, caught as always in each other's gravity—two bodies in orbit like binary stars.

They swam out past the breakers, treading water as they bobbed in the surf. When a wave crested on top of them, Nath broke away on instinct and dove into the swell. The force of the spray smacked Jack in the face, and as he blinked away the sting of the salt water, for one awful, disorienting moment he was alone, the inky black of the ocean indiscernible from the night sky. Then, Nath was breaking through the surface, smiling wide, the moonlight reflecting in his eyes as the tide pushed him towards shore, towards Jack, carrying him home.

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-launch barbecues at the NASA beach house are a [real thing](https://science.howstuffworks.com/nasa-astronaut-beach-house.htm)!
> 
> Title comes from the poem "[Relativity](https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2015/10/08/on-relativity/)," by Sarah Howe


End file.
